About TLC

A new standard for
apprenticeship learning.

Founded in Swansea in 2003, TLC is building the UK’s leading specialist apprenticeship provider: the best of icons, experts, educators and technology, brought together to transform what an apprenticeship can be. Rated Good by Ofsted, delivering across England, and driven by an exceptional ambition.

Talk to our team Our story
Swansea Bay at dusk
  • 0+ Years delivering training and apprenticeships
  • 2013 Rated Outstanding by Ofsted
  • 0 Apprenticeship standards across five sectors
  • Good Ofsted rated Good provider
The TLC office in Swansea

The TLC office, Swansea. Where the standard is set.

  • 2003 Founded in Swansea
  • 2013 Outstanding, Ofsted
  • 2023 Good in every area, Ofsted
  • 2026 The Academy of Culinary Excellence opens
  • 2030 5,000 learners, one standard

Our purpose

Why we do what we do.

To help people realise their potential and raise standards in the work that shapes everyday life.

We believe the opportunity to develop should be available throughout a working life. People bring different experiences, abilities and ambitions to learning, and they deserve an approach that recognises those differences and helps them take a meaningful next step.

The value of that development reaches further than the individual. A confident manager can improve the way a team works. A skilled care professional can make someone’s day safer and more fulfilling. A chef who understands the people they cook for can turn a meal into an experience of comfort and dignity. The people who care for others, prepare food, lead teams and keep organisations running make decisions that affect everyday life. Their development deserves serious investment.

This is where TLC’s purpose sits: at the connection between a person’s potential and the contribution they can make. We help that potential develop through learning that is relevant, challenging and supported. An apprenticeship done properly changes the direction of a life and the organisation around it. Done badly, it is paperwork. Too much of our sector settles for paperwork. We will not.

So we are building an approach that brings together educators, specialist practitioners and respected industry figures. Through our academies and partnerships we give learners a closer connection to the knowledge and thinking behind excellent practice: what good looks like, why it matters and how to work towards it in their own setting. Expertise becomes valuable when people can understand it, explore it and apply it, and our learning coaches make that connection, with technology that makes learning easier to reach and progress clearer to see.

As TLC grows, we want to bring these opportunities to more learners and employers, and to contribute to the standing of the professions we serve, recognising the skill, responsibility and judgement involved in work that matters to others. Our future is guided by Excellence, Integrity, Innovation, Inclusion and Impact: ambitious for our learners, useful to our employers and accountable for the quality of our contribution.

Only exceptional is good enough. This is why we do what we do.

John Allison Managing Director, TLC

In five statements

Developing people. Strengthening organisations. Raising standards.

Our purpose

To help people realise their potential and raise standards in the work that shapes everyday life.

Our mission
To bring together expert teaching, industry insight and purposeful technology, with personal support that helps learners develop their capabilities and employers build stronger organisations.
Our vision
To become the UK’s leading learning partner in the sectors we serve, recognised for the people we develop, the organisations we strengthen and the standards we help raise.
Our belief
People should be able to see the value of their work and the possibilities ahead of them. Learning can help them recognise both.
Our promise
Learning with a clear purpose, expertise connected to practice and support that helps people move forward.

Our vision

We bring the experts to learning.

Our vision is to become the UK’s leading learning partner in the sectors we serve, recognised for the people we develop, the organisations we strengthen and the standards we help raise. As we grow, we will extend access to specialist expertise while preserving the relationships that make learning personal. Five commitments sit behind it.

  1. Revolutionise apprenticeship delivery

    An apprenticeship should be more than a route to a qualification. It should introduce people to the best thinking in their profession and leave them more capable and more ambitious.

  2. Innovation at our core

    Technology with an educational purpose: accessible, responsive learning, better tools for educators, global standards, and human oversight always.

  3. Collaborating with the best in class

    Respected icons, accomplished practitioners and specialist organisations, built into the learning itself, alongside the learner and coach relationship rather than in place of it.

  4. Change the sectors we serve

    Health and social care, culinary, education, safeguarding and wellbeing: sectors where better-trained people change other people's lives.

  5. Leave a legacy

    A provider learners are proud to join, employers trust, and talented educators want to be part of, measured by the difference it makes.

What makes TLC different

Independent, accountable, and in it for the long run.

Most training providers look identical on paper. The difference is what happens after you’ve signed the contract. Here is what 23 years of doing this work has taught us employers and learners want from a training partner.

  • Independent, and built to scale

    Independently owned and led by the people who deliver the programmes, with the governance, systems and quality assurance of a national provider. Decisions are made close to the learner, and the standard does not move as we grow.

  • Specialists in our sectors

    We go deep in the sectors we serve rather than spreading thin. Our coaches have worked the kitchens, the wards, the classrooms and the ops floors they teach in. Your learners get someone who's been where they are.

  • One point of contact, end to end

    From enrolment paperwork to End-Point Assessment, your account manager is the single number you call. We chase the apprentice, not your line managers.

  • Built to last

    We don’t do off-the-shelf "engagement programmes". Our work is designed to build lasting cultural change, the kind that is still visible three years after the apprenticeship ends.

  • Delivery across England

    We work with employers the length of England, from multi-site care groups in the North West to single restaurants in central London, multi-academy trusts in the Midlands to logistics hubs in the North East.

  • Quality you can audit

    Ofsted Good. City & Guilds, Pearson and CMI accredited. End-Point Assessment delivered by approved EPAOs. Every claim on this page is one you can verify.

Our values

Five values that guide every decision.

They shape how we teach, select partners, use technology, support people and grow. They show up in the small decisions: who we hire, which contracts we walk away from, how we handle a struggling learner at the eleven-month mark.

  • Excellence

    High expectations for our teaching and for every learner’s and employer’s experience, and the discipline to keep improving.

  • Integrity

    Trust earned by being honest about what a programme offers, taking our commitments seriously and handling concerns with care.

  • Innovation

    Better ways to help people learn: partnerships, resources and technology, judged by what they add to understanding.

  • Inclusion

    Learning made accessible and participation meaningful, whatever a person’s starting point, without lowering the bar.

  • Impact

    What learning enables people to do, at work and beyond, and an honest view of the difference we make.

23 years, one mission

The milestones that built TLC.

From a small Swansea team in 2003 to delivery across England, these are the moments that shaped us.

Chapter one

TLC is founded

The Training and Learning Company opens in Swansea with a small team and one idea: people instigate profit.

Chapter two

First Ofsted inspection: Good

Five years in, TLC’s work-based learning is inspected for the first time and rated Good, the start of a record held ever since.

Chapter three

Health and social care

A dedicated care offer brings Adult Care Worker apprenticeships to residential and community providers across England.

Chapter four

Ofsted Outstanding

Rated Outstanding at full inspection, the highest grade Ofsted awards and one very few independent providers reach.

Chapter five

Levy era, new accreditations

Pearson and CMI join City & Guilds, building a progression ladder from Level 2 to Level 5 under one provider.

Chapter six

Ofsted Good, across the board

Inspected in March 2023 and rated Good in every judgement area: quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development.

Chapter seven

The Academy of Culinary Excellence

A partnership inspired by Marco Pierre White launches the next generation of chef apprenticeships, the first of TLC’s expert-led academies.

The next chapter

5,000 learners, one standard

The UK’s leading provider in the sectors we serve, grown without diluting quality: a new TLC, and only exceptional is good enough.

Where we work

Five specialist sectors. One standard.

We have gone deep in a small number of sectors. Twenty-three years of focus on the sectors below means our coaches, our materials and our employer relationships all sit inside a world we understand.

Culinary

Production Chef, Senior Production Chef and Senior Culinary Chef (L2 to L4). Delivered in partnership with the Marco Pierre White Academy.

Explore

Education

Teaching Assistant and Specialist Teaching Assistant (L3 to L5). Ideal for schools, multi-academy trusts and specialist provision.

Explore

Health & Social Care

Adult Care Worker through to Leader in Adult Care (L2 to L5). A full progression pathway for residential, domiciliary and supported-living teams.

Explore

Wellbeing

Community Health and Wellbeing Worker and Event Assistant (L3), with hair and beauty programmes being built with the Academy of Beauty and Wellbeing.

Explore

Safeguarding

Safeguarding Support Officer (L3), for the colleagues holding multi-agency responsibility in health, care and education.

Explore

Trusted by

Bupa Anchor Elior UK National Care Group Liaise DPD London Borough of Tower Hamlets

Where TLC fits

One team. One journey.

TLC sits at the centre of a group of specialist companies built to support it: academies, learning content, technology and safeguarding capability that feed into every programme we deliver. One relationship gives our employers access to all of it.

MPW Culinary Academy

The Academy of Culinary Excellence

Inspired by Marco Pierre White.

The Lino academy

The Academy of Beauty and Wellbeing

Inspired by Lino Carbosiero.

Learn Care Excel

Learn Care Excel

Promoting excellence, supporting people.

NUPAF Educators

NUPAF Educators

Excellence in teaching and recruitment.

Sonoro Publishing

Sonoro Publishing

Books, curricula and recorded expertise.

StreamLearn

StreamLearn

Digital delivery for every programme.

Sonoro AI

Sonoro AI

Technology with an educational purpose.

360 Safeguarding

360 Safeguarding

Safeguarding built into how we work.

Meet our experts

Let’s talk

Let’s build something exceptional.

If you are an employer planning your next workforce investment, or a learner deciding on a next step, book a call with our team and tell us what you need.

Book a conversation Call 01792 700611